Ultima Ultima 7=Decline?

[Alex]

If all that fabulous virtual world stuff had actually powered some good RPG systems, especially combat at least on the levels of its predecessors, I would have liked the game more, but I've never been partial to walking simulators

Combat is besides the point in pretty much any Ultima, except the underworld games. Having good combat is always welcome, and there are ways to make it work with how Ultima 7 approached the whole thing. But good combat is far from the most glaring issue with Ultima 7.

 

[Electryon]

This entire premise is absurd. Ultima VII may or may not be your cup or tea, but if you're gonna seriously argue that it's a road marker for decline, you might as well not stop there. Maybe Dungeon Master and Wizardry were the start of the decline. Or fucking Rogue. Or the original programmers who came up with the idea for putting variants of their D&D adventures on the Plato system. It will never cease to amaze me how the Codex contains a large contingent of people bitching and obsessing about a genre of games they obviously can't stand.

 

[Agesilaus]

This post is a reminder that Ultima 7 featured the best real-time game engine ever created. If you don't appreciate the beauty of doing a smash and grab at Iolo's bows, before fleeing Britannia by horse and cart, then... To the Death!

 

[Bumvelcrow]

This entire premise is absurd. Ultima VII may or may not be your cup or tea, but if you're gonna seriously argue that it's a road marker for decline, you might as well not stop there. Maybe Dungeon Master and Wizardry were the start of the decline. Or fucking Rogue. Or the original programmers who came up with the idea for putting variants of their D&D adventures on the Plato system. It will never cease to amaze me how the Codex contains a large contingent of people bitching and obsessing about a genre of games they obviously can't stand.

Oh, I'm sure most people are just trying to be edgy, but I remember clearly playing Ultima VII for the first time (I nearly missed school that day and had to be dragged from the computer by my mother), and while I vividly remember the story, interaction, and game world to be magical and unprecedented, the combat was disappointing and a lot of the mechanics were tiresome. No rose-tinted glasses here - I'd been a huge Ultima fanboy since Ultima 4 and would put Ultima 5 as the pinnacle.

Ultima 6 removed the multi-scale world, making the vast lands of Britannia seem smaller and less fascinating, and introduced massive stacks of identical items which had to be sorted. Ultima 7 seemed smaller again, although more densely packed with interesting places to explore and things to do. So while calling it 'decline' is clearly designed to provoke an argument, even at the time I could feel a lot of what made Ultima so special to me seeping away to be replaced by perhaps what a new generation of players considered special.

For me Serpent Isle is the paradox - the greatest story, worldbuilding, and characters. Probably some of the worst game mechanics, railroading and fiddly frustrations. I loved it, past tense, but I could never play it again today. Unlike Ultima V.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I actually installed exult and Ultima 7 this weekend, all this talk about how great it was, got me with an itch to play it again.

Have to say that I miss modern quality of life features, like click to move, better inventory management, and better combat mechanics.

Graphics hold up surprisingly well tho.

 

[DavidBVal]

Decline is not about features or design choices.

Decline is about games becoming bland and without true form, just trying to please the masses, ignoring principles, assuming it even has some.

U7 really tried something new, failed miserably at some things, was remarkable at others, but I think it was a genuine attempt at making something new and grandiose. It doesn't feel like it whores itself every minute to avoid player frustration (see:Skyrim) Incline.

 

[Malignant Manor]

Exult allows click to move. Default is double right click to move like the original. You can do it with the gameplay/right click pathfinds setting. It even opens unlocked doors. The pathfinding can sometimes be shitty though.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

As someone who played UVII-BG recently, I wasn't really able to get into it, at least that time, because these days it doesn't hold up as well, but I do think it was one of the most influential RPGs ever, and a great game for its time. And I say this for a very simple reason, a lot of later games which are my favorites were made by developers who cited The Black Gate as their inspiration. Gothic 1 and 2 devs mentioned Ultima VII as an inspiration for their masterpieces, the Divinity guys at Larian did as well, and if you look around today, everyone is making or trying to make open world RPGs, and UVII started all that. Even if a lot of those open world RPGs today suck, some are good (New Vegas, Witcher 3 writing-wise), and some might be good in the future (Kingdom Come, ELEX, etc). I personally believe open world RPGs are the holy grail of the genre, and UVII deserves credit for being a pioneer in that regard.

 

[Kem0sabe]

The open world rpg that got closest to Ultima vii in terms of excitement and sense of wonder playing it, was probably Morrowind for me.

 

[Alex]

I actually installed exult and Ultima 7 this weekend, all this talk about how great it was, got me with an itch to play it again.

Have to say that I miss modern quality of life features, like click to move, better inventory management, and better combat mechanics.

Graphics hold up surprisingly well tho.

I actually like Ultima 7's inventory management.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

The open world rpg that got closest to Ultima vii in terms of excitement and sense of wonder playing it, was probably Morrowind for me.

My first instinct was to reach for the hitler button, but I can see what you mean. I've been struggling to think of something closer to that sense of the wonder of the unknown and can't think of any RPGs that quite do it. The only ones that spring to mind are non-RPGs, Midwinter, Millennium 2.2, Bioforge, and maybe Warhead.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Yeah I can see why OP thinks this is start o decline, in many ways I think it were, lack o character creation, lack o classes, lack o deep stat relevance such as you see in Torment, Arcanum an Fallout, even lack o camping mechanic that we saw in V, lack of morality meter etc.

Then again the positives are equally strong, living world that makes even modern Elder Scrolls look a bit shit in comparison, day and night schedule that actually had enough shit happening to merit your downtime being rewarding, NPC schedules and characterisation that once again piss all over Bethesda, environmental interaction whereas most modern games are just characters on painted backdrops, masses o interesting things to do outside combat, themes and narrative that are both interesting and philosophically quite fucking deep, spells that change how you can play game and are interesting and mighty, no loading screens, magical items that are useful and once again change gameplay, masses o methods o getting around from various forms o teleportation to magic carpets, wagons, and o course shanks mare.

Another thing that I loved were inventory, simple an intuitive because it were almost exactly like reality, so it came easy to anybody who used it. You carry shit in your hands if you've got nowhere to put it, but put on a backpack an you've got a ton o space to use, add a few bags and you can further sort your inventory. Requires management to keep on top of it but preparing yourself for all shit that comes wi trudging off into wilds o Britannia is only fair and reasonable, an you'd be an idiot not to. That an you could craft a homebase organically, you dint get given a stronghold or owt, but you could collect chest and keys to lock em, store your gold an artifacts in em, an create a supply depot wi food, drink, an all your needs to stock up on.

Also exploration in U7 were fucking top notch, heading off into Deep Forest, from Iolo's Hut was an adventure and a challenge, and you found interesting shit. An plumbing all the old dungeons was great, especially ones that weren't on critical quest path, just optional content that'd be cut on a modern game. An this exploration an adventuring, no fucking quest markers, no mini map, you had a simple feature once again taken from reality, a map o realm an a sextant to pinpoint your position that dint do shit in a dungeon. Players were not treated like a fucking incompetent child for once, they were trusted to be able to do shit an think.

Mixed things i'm not sure are decline or incline are romances, an U7 were fucking chock full on em, an years before Bioware trumpeted about its characters being able to be bi, gay, lesbian or whatever, U7 had your Avatar free to screw who he or she wanted to in various places and it dint even raise a single eyebrow, it were taken as normal and not even commented on. It were treated like sexuality were in Obs NV, no big fucking thing, but did it spawn Biowares sickening and cloying insistence on everybody forcing themselves on you an trumpeting their private shit all over, who knows, might have.

All told i'd say positives outweigh negatives, and I fucking wish a lot o modern games'd try what U7 did, cause they seem to be stripping down an abstracting almost everything outside combat an graphics, an being cheered on for delivering less an less content. Wow wrote a lot.

Don't necessarily agree with you, bu damn I can feelz you.

I haven't bought this one on GoG yet. It's on wish list. I already got GOG games I haven't plaeyd. I still need to play Omikron, ToEE, Risen, Fallout 2 and Darklands. I always find reasons to not play games.

 

[Lilura]

The only ones that spring to mind are non-RPGs, Midwinter, Millennium 2.2, Bioforge, and maybe Warhead.

Also, Hunter. Both it and Midwinter were fucking amazing for their time.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

Decline is not about features or design choices.

Decline is about games becoming bland and without true form, just trying to please the masses, ignoring principles, assuming it even has some.

U7 really tried something new, failed miserably at some things, was remarkable at others, but I think it was a genuine attempt at making something new and grandiose. It doesn't feel like it whores itself every minute to avoid player frustration (see:Skyrim) Incline.

Thing is, games today serve much larger audiences. In the 1990's a game might serve a couple million people AT BEST. Games today, like Skyrim, are serving tens of millions. So how do you gauge whether a game is "just trying to please the masses"? If you judge hte games of today by the audience sizes of the 1990's, you might think they're trying to please the masses. However, I think you do notice it's more about what a company does with a particular game in a particular era. Do they try to do something new and dangerous, or do they pull back cowardly and appeal to the masses for extra $$$ cushion?

I think a lot of this is only seen in hindsight. Not everything "dangerous and new" works out. Many times it doesn't. This is why game makers and companies play it safe and appeal to the masses or go by the book only.

I think in VII's case it was trying to appeal to the masses by making combat more streamlined and action-oriented. However, it made up for this by creating a non-linear sandbox world unparalelled by many others even to this day. Some will say this "non-linear sandbox" is unimpressive or boring. Who cares whether NPCs have schedules? But many fans DO care. That's why VII is famous. That's why I still have an eye on VII. It may not be a great game, but it's definitely unique.

I still have an eye on the gothic series too. WhY? Because NPCs get drunk and have schedules... Who cares, you say? That's not fun. Well I care. That's why I have Risen. I knew its makers were involved in Gothic. In Risen you can craft your weapons too. Useless, you say? I like it. What's great is we're all different and can play different games.

The X-series space games which're elite-like are similar. They're open world and sandbox. They're not RPGs, but you do play a "role" in some sense. For me, it always felt somewhat like an RPG. I'm not RPG purist. I just like sandboxes.

Maybe sandbox games need their own classificaiton so they don't get mixed up with other genres. A lot of arguments on the codex revolve around confusion stemming from genre blurring. We argue on and on as blind fools.

 

[Daemongar]

As someone who played UVII-BG recently, I wasn't really able to get into it, at least that time, because these days it doesn't hold up as well, but I do think it was one of the most influential RPGs ever, and a great game for its time. And I say this for a very simple reason, a lot of later games which are my favorites were made by developers who cited The Black Gate as their inspiration. Gothic 1 and 2 devs mentioned Ultima VII as an inspiration for their masterpieces, the Divinity guys at Larian did as well, and if you look around today, everyone is making or trying to make open world RPGs, and UVII started all that. Even if a lot of those open world RPGs today suck, some are good (New Vegas, Witcher 3 writing-wise), and some might be good in the future (Kingdom Come, ELEX, etc). I personally believe open world RPGs are the holy grail of the genre, and UVII deserves credit for being a pioneer in that regard.

Sounds like you get it. Folks miss context when they talk about Ultima VII. It was groundbreaking. It was worth playing. It did a lot of things. It had speech, it had an impressive world with lots of dungeons, events, and areas that were there just for exploration. It had characters you knew and had a pretty interesting story.

I can see it: in 1992, Wizardry 7, Ultima Underworld, Clouds of Xeen and The Summoning all came out. There was some righteous shit coming out at the time. Even among those contemporaries, Ultima 7 captivated folks the most. It took the most disk space, had the most impressive system requirements and was a pain in the ass to run, but it also allowed for the most engrossing world. It was head and shoulders above those other games in dialog, graphics, and open world exploration. But ya, the combat and character stats were poor - but here the secret: nobody gave a shit.

It's very easy to dump on Ultima 7, because right now it's not a big deal. Any system can run it, every system has big maps with scrolling stuff, interesting combat spells and all that.

But Ultima VII did some things incredibly well:
* The dialog system was amazing at the time. Not many games had such abilities or like it's contemporaries (Darklands, UU) allows click on one of 4 responses.
* The gumps were new and very useful. Like Windows for DOS.
* The map was well done and dangerous. Not shit now when you can get the Black Sword almost immediately because we've all done it and all versions include the expansion.
* The spell system was tops. Find reagents, find spells, populate your book, cast stuff. Pretty choice, diminished only by spell viability in combat.
* The characters were worth playing, finding, adding, and added dimension not seen (much) before. Innocent party banter before it all became about trying to bone your companions.

It didn't start the decline. It created a template for future big world games, something that devolved into what we have today. It's like blaming the printing press for Dan Brown.

 

[made]

* The dialog system was amazing at the time. Not many games had such abilities or like it's contemporaries (Darklands, UU) allows click on one of 4 responses.

How was it amazing? U6 already had clickable keywords (at least on the Amiga), it just didn't order them in a neat little list for easy access so you actually had to take notes during convos. U7 just got rid of the parser because text parsers had gone out of fashion by '92. Definitely decline in the name of convenience.

 

[Jaesun]

Ultima VII did some things incredibly well:
* It displayed how a non-linear open world exploratory cRPG should be designed

What Ultima VII did terribly:
* remove the turn-based combat into the new Clusterfuck Combat System™

It retained *some* elements and strengths from the previous Ultima series, and continued to move them forward. And then they changed the combat system....

 

[Ladonna]

Indeed, the combat system was the pits.

Like others here, I feel Ultima V was the high water mark for Ultima. Some aspects improved in later games (and indeed, Martian Dreams, an Ultima VI spinoff, is one of my favourite games of all time), but overall, I felt they had started in a different direction that I didn't like.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

...

Yeah, I agree. Some great games came out that year, but ultimately (no pun intended), UVII was the one that showed the future, both in the good and bad sense. Most people who are into RPGs want giant open worlds, which explains the direction the genre is moving into now. Those worlds can of course be done well or badly, resulting in either incline or decline, but that general direction is the right one.

 

[Daemongar]

How was it amazing? U6 already had clickable keywords (at least on the Amiga), it just didn't order them in a neat little list for easy access so you actually had to take notes during convos. U7 just got rid of the parser because text parsers had gone out of fashion by '92. Definitely decline in the name of convenience.

So text parsers had gone out of fashion, but taking notes on conversations did not go out of fashion? What exactly are you saying? You say U7 improved on U6, but U7 is decline because of it?

You were a fan of seeing a paragraph, clicking on one word of it, then having to see the same preceding paragraph again to click on other highlighted options? This is reaching, even by Codex standards. That part of U6 sucked.

 

[made]

How was it amazing? U6 already had clickable keywords (at least on the Amiga), it just didn't order them in a neat little list for easy access so you actually had to take notes during convos. U7 just got rid of the parser because text parsers had gone out of fashion by '92. Definitely decline in the name of convenience.

So text parsers had gone out of fashion, but taking notes on conversations did not go out of fashion? What exactly are you saying? You say U7 improved on U6, but U7 is decline because of it?

You were a fan of seeing a paragraph, clicking on one word of it, then having to see the same preceding paragraph again to click on other highlighted options? This is reaching, even by Codex standards. That part of U6 sucked.

What's so hard to grasp? A text parser allows more freedom and creativity in conversations than a list of unlockable keywords does.

PS: Ur mom is reaching - into my pants.

 

[Daemongar]

Yeah, I agree. Some great games came out that year, but ultimately (no pun intended), UVII was the one that showed the future, both in the good and bad sense. Most people who are into RPGs want giant open worlds, which explains the direction the genre is moving into now. Those worlds can of course be done well or badly, resulting in either incline or decline, but that general direction is the right one.

No. Ultima VII was a very good game. It's not good now because people here are bastards.

How was it amazing? U6 already had clickable keywords (at least on the Amiga), it just didn't order them in a neat little list for easy access so you actually had to take notes during convos. U7 just got rid of the parser because text parsers had gone out of fashion by '92. Definitely decline in the name of convenience.

So text parsers had gone out of fashion, but taking notes on conversations did not go out of fashion? What exactly are you saying? You say U7 improved on U6, but U7 is decline because of it?

You were a fan of seeing a paragraph, clicking on one word of it, then having to see the same preceding paragraph again to click on other highlighted options? This is reaching, even by Codex standards. That part of U6 sucked.

What's so hard to grasp? A text parser allows more freedom and creativity in conversations than a list of unlockable keywords does.

PS: Ur mom is reaching - into my pants.

And with your 1 byte parser, she ain't getting any output.

 

[Whipping Post]

The combat in Ultima 7 is awful. U7 isn't about combat.

In the 8th grade I spent countless hours amusing myself with the U7 and Serpent Isle debuggers; I kidnapped Erstam's harem, then appropriated the Castle of the White Dragon, redesigned it as the Avatar's pleasure palace, complete with automatons set up to manufacture bread, cloaks, weapons, etc. The game environment lends itself perfectly to tinkering, since it treats basically all objects (including things like walls, floors, and stairs) as items that the player can manipulate with cheats if not through normal game-play.

I think the appeal of U7 lies in the amount of player freedom and interaction with the game-world that it offers, as well as its realism. It feels like a living world, especially compared to its contemporaries.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Ultima 7 - Too much of a good thing & not enough good things & lots of needlessly good padding.

I tried this on the recommendation of Neanderthal . First off, I'd like to say that I can see why some people will like this game, and why some are even lovers of it but, for me, I'm glad I found this thread as I was wondering how many shit ratings I was going to get when I shared my thoughts about this not-really an RP game. I'd also like to state that I do like it and under certain circumstances I could play it with affection, it's just not the game that my life currently requires.

After playing for approximately 15 hours I find myself still wandering around Britain, looking for houses and still meeting new people and trudging through rather tedious and pretentious dialogue. When I was in Trinsic I thought this was the traditional first town, tutorial area and after leaving there I would start adventuring. Alas, I then walked through Paws and then Britain. I dread to think how many NPCs I've spoken to, how many times I've clicked name, job, occasionally solving some menial quest or task as some kind of relief to break up the monotony a bit.

Now, there's nothing wrong with what's happening here, there's just something wrong with the way it's being presented. One of the most common complaints on any RPG board about any RPG is "Trash Mobs". Even games that don't, technically, have trash mobs get accused of having too many trash mobs. Ultima 7 has "Trash Dialogue". Constant and ceaseless repetition of the exact same process with the exact same sprites over, and over, and over again. The game itself even mocks this right near the start of the game, but what really pissed me off was that it knew it was doing it and took pleasure in telling you that it didn't give a shit that it was doing it, like Ramsey Snow taking pleasure in Reek.

You meet an actor and he 'jokes' about how the Avatar just repeats "Name, Job" ad-infinitum. You then meet a Jester who's going to 'play a game' with you. What is this game? Oh, it's a dialogue options 'game' where you have to repeat your conversation with him, on a purely trial and error basis, until you've got to the end of his dialogue tree, with 3 out of the four options taking you back to square one. No thought, no skill, just trial and error. And the big joke at the end before you get to the last line? The really haha funny aspect? The dialogue itself tells you its because the game just wants to waste your time, because that's all that's happening here, a big joke time waste.

Oh, I can see the humour in this. If it was a forum troll or a steam greenlight meme game then, yes, I understand the humour. But to understand and be aware of the time-wasting nature of your padded content in an already huge game, to be aware of it and still do it, to be aware of it and still do it AND communicate that to the audience, well, sounds like arrogance before a fall to me.

And I didn't even find this out by myself. I'd actually decided to give-up the conversation with the Jester somewhere in the middle of the bullshit. I literally couldn't cope with a single more line of dialogue, the whole castle building had, by itself, chewed through my daily few hours of coping limit with all this shit and I was already passed ready to shut the game down and go to the frickin toilet or whatever. I found out because in the previous session I had whittled down all the locations of the three towns/villages to about 5 or 6 remaining buildings, intending to finish up all of Britain by the end of today's session. I only had one more place to go to, the Theatre, and I could happily close the game down for the day.

But I couldn't find the frickin theatre. I had the entire town mapped out in my head the previous day, but today the theatre had decided to vanish from my memory. I walked all round Britain, it started to get dark, I walked all round it again, my team started wanting food, I walked all round town again, and I just fucking gave up. I put into google "Ultima 7 theatre location" and the first link I looked at I saw the whole Jester thing (that it did actually lead somewhere) and I closed that link before I found myself playing the entire game by walkthrough. I then searched "Ultima 7 Britain map" and just got the map picture, finally went to the theatre, but, of course, no-one was there at night, and closed the game down for the day after finishing up the Jester routine.

This wouldn't have been so bad had I not already been extremely frustrated by the Pumpkins. Earlier in a previous session I had been given the fetch quest of gathering some pumpkins by a farmer. Sounds fairly straight forward. However, after clicking and then double clicking on every single pumpkin in two fields of pumpkins I could find no interactive pumpkins. I walked all round town, nothing. I walked all round town again, nothing. I ventured out of town a bit, found myself in battle 5 seconds later, found myself standing over a dead enemy (I had to walk around a bit to find the other dead body, my party had killed him off-screen somewhere) 3 seconds after that, equipped my entire team with chain amour a few seconds after that then wandered back into town to, once again, spend half an hour looking for some bloody pumpkins for 5 gold.

But the dead bodies had chests on them. Yes, they seemed to be carrying actual treasure chests. Not only this, but locked treasure chests. Whatever was in those chests evaporated into the ether, because, while everything is so real and interactive in this game, your loot, that stuff that's the only real reason why you're playing, will evaporate into non-existence in nano-seconds.

At the close of play today I tried to have a mental recap of all my current and on-going tasks. I had, of course, completely forgotten who had asked me to do what, where any of the ones I had remembered lived, what their names were and what job they did. Not helping in this matter was the fact that I had introduced myself to half the town while in the local pub while the whole town sat down to pie and ale. After releasing Weston today I set about looking for the guy named Figg to see what would become of that loose-end to the dialogue trees. I seemed to remember meeting Figg, I remembered the 5 gold pieces for an apple dialogue (and the obvious and memorable raised eyebrows at the time). So I walked round town looking for him. Nope, not that guy, not him, not , not there, oh, wait, provisions guy, that's the only one I haven't re-tried yet. What? He's not there? Maybe in the pub? Nope... so I walked round town again... and again... and... a...g...a...i...n.

Now... I get why some people like these kind of games, I really do. I could like this game. However, the only way to get fun out of these kind of games is to write a walkthrough yourself while playing it. draw a pen and paper map while you explore. Have pages of notes on everyone you meet, completel with number coding to maps. Have pages of self-made journal entries, all written out by hand. Copy out all the weapon, spell, potion, reagent info into your own personal p&p codex. That would be awesome! ... if I was retired and was looking for a project that wasn't something I was already committed to, like sorting out 70 years of photos into albums or drawing up a top 100 list of rpgs for the 10th time.

But these are the things that technology has improved in RPGs. Simple, paper reducing, technologies, like minimaps, journals, many and varied interesting forms of combat. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of red-dots mark the spot quest radars, I'm not even fussed about journals auto-updating, but just basic quality of life features like a town map that draws itself as you walk around and a 'write your own' in-game journal would be something. Something in a game for which its entire game seems to be memorising where things are and memorising what people say. Just like the watch, yes, thanks for giving me me one, but why do I not start with one? Why wait until arbitrary NPC convo number 37? And why can't it just be there on the screen, in the top right corner or wherever? Why am I not allowed to know how much time one lump of mutton lasts, why is there no book on that anywhere? Oh, people are giving me free meals now anyway... so why wait until random NPC encounter number 43 to give me that?

It goes on and on...

As I said, I can see what the appeal is, it's the same appeal an archaeologist would get from working out what a new (old) bone is. Its not a game, it's a project. A project I could see myself enjoy undertaking under the right circumstances. But for when I just want to play an RPG? Not really. Not really at all. It just replaces trash combat with trash NPCs to pad out its '100 hours of gameplay' bollox.

 

[Infinitron]

What is this game? Oh, it's a dialogue options 'game' where you have to repeat your conversation with him, on a purely trial and error basis, until you've got to the end of his dialogue tree, with 3 out of the four options taking you back to square one. No thought, no skill, just trial and error.

Haha nope. Look closely at the correct answers.